The Noise Isn't All They Cancel

The Bose Quiet Comfort Headset (original version) was reviewed as part of a showdown between two different approaches to noise reduction - active noise cancellation (Bose QuietComfort) and acoustic isolation (Etymotic ER4P).

While the Bose headset is certainly better than the free headphones you get on airplanes, and the electronic noise reduction circuitry does a good job of cancelling background noise, ultimately the Bose headset did not perform as well on music and movies as the Etymotic headphones.

Bose has introduced an updated version of the headset which we have not yet auditioned.

The complete review is available here.